Euro human rights judges back militant union strike plea to make it easier to take industrial action

Human rights judges in Strasbourg are threatening to hand Britain’s militant trade unions new rights to go on strike.

The European Court of Human Rights has given its initial approval to a submission by the hard-line Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union which claims that UK laws unfairly restrict the power of union barons to take industrial action.

The RMT, headed by Bob Crow, wants to make it easier to mount strike ballots and overturn the ban on secondary action - when workers launch a sympathy strike in support of a different employer’s workers.

The European Court of Human Rights (building pictured) may give Britain's trade unions new rights to go on strike

If successful, the legal action would seriously undermine the laws passed by the Thatcher government in the 1980s to prevent the unions from holding Britain to ransom.

It comes at a time when union bosses are threatening to hold a general strike in protest at the government’s austerity programme.

The RMT, headed by Bob Crow (pictured) wants to make it easier to mount strike ballots

‘2011 saw the most working days lost to strikes in over 20 years. We need stronger not weaker laws to prevent caviar communists like Bob Crow from damaging the economy and holding Britain to ransom.’

In its submission to Euro judges, the RMT claims that ‘the right to strike is excessively circumscribed’ in Britain in breach of article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to freedom of association including the right to form trade unions .

This is despite the fact the Convention accepts that countries can impose ‘lawful restrictions’ on union rights in the interest of the ‘administration of the State’.

Ministers would have expected the court to immediately throw out the application, as they do with thousands of unfounded cases every year.

But, to the alarm of Whitehall officials, Strasbourg has allowed the union’s application to proceed.

The decision means the British Government must now respond to the claim - and if its explanation does not satisfy the court, a full hearing will be held.

London Mayor Boris Johnson, who has clashed repeatedly with the RMT, said the intervention by the Strasbourg court was ‘totally unacceptable’.

He added: ‘We need to look again at the ease with which RMT bosses and other union barons threaten needless action that causes endless misery for the public.

‘It’s just too easy for them to trigger strikes, and if they get their way in Strasbourg it will be even easier. That’s totally unacceptable and it’s wrong.

‘What events in Strasbourg show is the need right now for tighter laws on vexatious strikes that have little or no support amongst hard-working transport employees in London.’

When the RMT’s claim was first submitted to Strasbourg in 2010, Mr Crow said: ‘RMT is in no doubt that the fundamental human right to withdraw labour has been systematically undermined.

‘We have no option but to take these matters to the European Court in a bid to protect the rights of our members and of working people in Britain.’

The European court has proved a constant thorn in the side of the British government. Ministers have until November to decide how they will respond to the hugely controversial edict to give inmates the vote.

The court also came under fire last week for delaying the extradition of terror suspects to the US, including the hook-handed hate-preacher Abu Hamza.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, described the eight-year long Abu Hamza saga as ‘unacceptable’ and a source of ‘real fury to me’.